: Chapter 25

Today’s been a busy day in exactly zero of the ways I intended, and my brain is on the fritz, trying to hold it all together.

After what went down in our condo’s gym last night, I’ve messaged June a bunch of times on Midnight, but she’s yet to respond. And when I got to work this morning, my first priority was finding her and guiding her toward a quiet spot in our office to hash everything out—to try to understand why she did what she did, to try to understand what it all means—but everything went to hell, and I’ve spent hour after hour putting out fires on multiple accounts.

Social media disasters, missed commercial spots, unreliable vendors—you name it, and it’s come up since I arrived at the office early this morning.

This was supposed to be an easy day. I should’ve been able to coast right through to the weekend until my parents’ big Halloween party tomorrow night, but my phone’s Teams’ notifications, paired with our Asana workflow, have sounded like a fucking swarm of noisy birds. One more chirp from the damn thing and I’m going to lose my cool. Or, you know, just fucking deal with it and try to keep my head from exploding.

Chirp, my phone announces right on cue, and a heavy sigh leaves my lungs as I look down at the screen.

Harry: The Gerry Meats contract is stalled in legal review. They’ve had it for three months, and we already have one hundred hours on this thing because of the drop date. Any cues on direction?

Me: I’ll escalate the issue to Neil and Chris. Stay on task until I get another edict.

Harry: Understood.

Huffing out a breath, I round the reception desk, offering a friendly nod to Marlene, and head through the glass doors that lead to the cubicles in the center of the floor plan.

June’s desk is empty—as is Avery’s—but the deeper I get into the junior marketers’ desks, the more flames surround me. I don’t know what it is about holidays and their supposed “easy” status, but in my work world, statistically, they’re the leading time for anything that can shit the bed to shit the bed.

I pocket my phone and pray, dead set on making it to my office before someone else can stop me or finding June and confronting her—at this point, either option will do.

Laura tries to meet my eyes, and Eddie waits outside my door, but I’m about as prepared to be a boss today as I was to find out June was my Mystery Woman last night.

Fucking not at all.

I finally spot June alone in the break room and take off toward her on a mission. She looks amazing in a crisp white blouse and black pencil skirt, and her bright copper hair is curled in a way that seems to glitter under the fluorescent lights.

Her feet are just barely crossed, one kicked back in a sexy lean as she waits at the Keurig for her coffee to finish brewing. I watch her movements closely, imagining all the erotic things she said to me in our chats coming to life with her face and body. The Mystery Woman’s been nothing more than a hazy blur in my mind for so long, it’s almost counterintuitive to allow myself anything else.

But fuck, she looks good. Beautiful. Downright stunning.

Though, it doesn’t change the tornado of thoughts that have been swirling through my brain since I walked into our condo’s gym last night and saw her standing there.

June is my Mystery Woman, and I still don’t know how I should feel about it. There’s a part of me that thinks I should be angry, but that anger has yet to come. There’s another part of me that thinks I should feel completely violated by how things went down—by the very intimate direction our Midnight messages went—without me knowing it was her the whole time.

It was dishonest, to say the least, but if she’d never done it, if she’d never initiated our Midnight chats, where would that leave me?

The answer to that question makes my chest ache with the kind of discomfort that has me lifting my hand to rub at my sternum as I close the distance toward the break room, my eyes fixated on June the whole time.

I’m focused so intently on her, it’s a surprise when I run into someone, nearly knocking them on their ass. A female voice shrieks and I stumble, and when I steady her on her feet, I realize who it is—Bethany.

What seems like a million fucking people in this office today, and it had to be her. I swear, today is a dumpster fire.

“Geez, Beau,” she complains, smoothing her silk dress back down her legs and adjusting her purse onto her shoulder. “Pay attention much?”

“Sorry, Beth. Got a lot going on today.”

“Obviously. Seth told me how busy you all are.”

I nod. “Yeah, we thought it would be low-key since it’s the Friday of Halloween weekend, but no luck.”

Bethany studies me closely, and I lean to the side a little, trying to get a look over her shoulder. My stomach sinks when I see that June’s no longer standing in front of the Keurig. In fact, I don’t see her in the break room at all.

Bethany looks behind herself, my distraction obvious, and her mouth turns down in a frown. “I guess I’ll let you get back to it, then. Seth and I were supposed to go to lunch, but he ordered food to his office instead because of everything that’s going on.”

“Probably smart,” I agree, looking down the hall to see if I can spot June making her normal rounds. Around this time in the afternoon, she checks in with all the execs first, then the team leaders, and then finally each member of the projects team to make sure they don’t have any pickups or sendouts she needs to do or if there’s any way to make their lives a little easier.

I don’t envy her position in the company right now—it’s the most overworked and underpaid of them all. And with Avery as her coworking-counterpart, it’s even more burdensome. I don’t know what happened with my sister, but her work ethic is lower than one of those underwater caves that leads to the center of the earth.

“Are you okay? You’re acting really weird today,” Bethany remarks, snapping my attention back to her. I’d almost forgotten she was still here. As for why she is, I’m not sure.

“I’m fine. Just busy. I’m pretty sure Seth’s in his office,” I say in dismissal. Her eyes narrow just slightly, and if I hadn’t dated her for as long as I did, I might not have even noticed. But I did, and I do. Despite being engaged to Seth McKenzie, she’s annoyed that she’s not the center of my attention. Because that’s Bethany’s MO. She wants to be at the center of everyone and everything, no matter the consequences.

Unfortunately for me, it took far too long to see that superficial side of her. A harsh breakup because she was sleeping with my best friend, to be exact.

But now? She’s not my fucking problem. Thank God.

I smile and step around her, giving nothing more than a little wave as I head down the hall toward my office, where Eddie waits. I have plenty of work to keep me busy—too much to torture myself with useless small talk with the Bethanys of the world.

June, though… I would welcome one-on-one time with her with open arms.

My phone goes off with a text, and even though it’s a challenge, I manage to take it out and read the message rather than shooting it like a basketball for a three-point shot into the water cooler trash can.

Henry: Are we doing theme costumes for tomorrow?

Mav: Theme costumes?

Henry: Yeah. Like where we go as something matching.

Ronnie: Fuck no.

Mav: You’re thinking of couple’s costumes, Hen, and last I checked, you still refuse to suck my dick. So, no, I will not be matching you tomorrow.

More annoyed than amused by my friends’ nonsense for the first time in a long time, I tuck the phone back into my pocket and keep walking without responding.

And I’m almost stepping into my office when I catch sight of June inside Chris’s office. On impulse, I backtrack, heading straight in her direction, and just as she’s stepping out of his door, I’m right there, ready to pounce on the first opportunity I’ve had to talk to her all day.

I don’t offer a greeting, I don’t ask questions, and I don’t say a single fucking thing. I herd her directly into the supply closet across the hall and close the door behind us without so much as pausing. Eddie’s eyes widen slightly before the door shuts, but he doesn’t call any further attention to the weird behavior before averting his gaze to the floor.

I don’t care, though. I’ll make up something to explain it away to him later.

As for June, her eyes are startled and wide, and her mouth is worried. She backs up against the closed door, searching the small closet for another way out. “What are you doing, Beau? Have you lost your mind?”

“Just finishing what you started,” I assert. “What the hell is going on, June?” It’s a sharp lash, one I don’t entirely intend, and she shrinks back into herself. I try to calm my voice, but the adrenaline of finally getting a chance to question her on everything that’s happened between us maintains an edge. “Why did you start that message with me on Midnight?”

She shakes her head. “I really don’t think now is the time to talk about this.”

“Why not?” I scoff. If you ask me, the time to talk about it was yesterday. Or fuck, before the messages even started in the first place.

The position she’s put us in…it’s tenuous. We’re in a dark room with no windows, fire licking at our heels, and I don’t know if there’s a way out. I don’t know if there’s a way back.

“Because we’re at work. Because people are going to notice we’re missing soon,” she fires back. “Because Avery likes to hang out in this closet so your dad can’t find her and assign her anything.”

“Sounds like a list of cheap excuses just so you can avoid—”

As if on prompt, June is launched forward by the door swinging open, and I have to catch her by the biceps to keep both of us from crashing into the shelf behind me. Even this simple touch feels different now, my palms burning at the feel of her soft skin.

My sister scoots inside, her eyebrows drawing together at the sight of us.

“What in the hell are you guys doing? Are you having some kind of work-nerd meeting in here? Because I claimed this spot a long time ago. June agreed to the verbal contract.”

June’s eyes widen in terror for a long moment as she tries to come up with an answer, her lashes skirting the bottom of her eyebrows. My jaw grinds slightly with annoyance at my involuntary position in this mess of secrets, but I step in for her anyway, throwing out the first thing I think of.

“Avoiding Bethany. She’s here for lunch with Seth.”

I hate that it makes me sound like I give a single fucking shit about the two of them, but after running into her earlier, it’s the first thing that came to mind.

Avery snorts. “Okayyy. Probably don’t need to be in this closet anymore, then. I just came by his office, and they were in there with the door closed, if you know what I mean.”

I roll my eyes. “We know what you mean.”

Avery laughs, raising two well-manicured hands in front of herself. “Right. Well, sorry. Don’t mean to be insensitive, but she whines like an alley cat when she’s trying to be quiet and come at the same time.” She waves in front of her face. “Oh, well. I guess you know that.”

I glance at June to see her tucking her hair behind her ears nervously. I don’t want her to get the idea that I’m still hung up on Bethany because I don’t give a fuck about Bethany. But if she wants this to be a secret from Avery, I’m not sure what else to do.

I’m not going to get any answers like this—not with Avery here—and ending June’s misery seems like the only considerate thing to do.

Being patient seems impossible, but eventually, she’s going to have to talk to me. With how intertwined our lives already are, it’s a physical certainty.

“I better get back to work,” I say, excusing myself and stepping toward the door.

Avery nods. “Yeah, you’d better. There’s only room for one Banks in this closet, and I called dibs a long time ago.”

I don’t want to leave it like this with June, but I have no choice. We’ll finish this later.

But later had better be soon.